It happened last night.
All my life I knew I’m incredibly important for my dad. I believe that me (the first child and daugher) and my mom are the most important persons in the world for him. He always did everything in his power for us. When I was 7, I got brother and sister – twins. I always felt a bit awkward because I saw that dad didn’t manage to care that much for them as he did for me. I still felt the most important and that was not a good thing, I felt sorry for my siblings for having more attention from parents, especially dad.
During my adolescence I got quite a nasty character. I became self-centered, selfish. Maybe it’s usual for a teen to feel that way, but I always felt I knew my rights (as I see now – not the responsibilities) and sometimes had a shout with my mom or other member of a family. Now I believe it passed. But what I remember from those days was if my dad tried to say something to me I’d just shut him out “you have no right to talk with me like that/about that”, knowing he would never emotionaly hurt me, I was hurting him.
Few years ago, my mom got sick. Even though we still sometimes have our arguments, mostly about the way she is around the house, the way she or me talk to my younger brother and sister, I still fell I can not care more for her. If somethign’s is bad for her, I feel it. It is the same way I feel about grandmother, who played essential part in me growing up, and my brother and sister – I want to protect them, do good in school, never let anything bad happen to them.
As wonderful as my father might be – he cares for his family very much, does the shopping, drives us anywhere any of us want or need to go, help with housework, tries to give us the best he can offer, he also just lays in from of TV in the evenings, rarely talking or having dinner with us. I guess that’s where we got the habbit of eating separately all the time. And worst of all – he has a drinking problem. Few weeks ago, all family went to another family’s father’s (a friend of dad’s) birthday and he got drunk.I had to drive us home, with him talking pretty much nonsense, worying about the way he was affecting me and my moms and my siblings. After this I was angry with him for a week – feeling “how can he do something like that to us”, not talking, being distant. Afterwards, he apologised, accepted his guilt, promised he’d try and that was it. As far as I can remember there were 3 times this year when he got home drunk, which was extremely unpleasant.
He wants to spend time with me very much, akways encourage any idea of traveling together (especially with me), but I always feel like I’m looking something for me in here, being selfish. We went to Frankfurt last year and I don’t feel like I communicate with him very well, if my opinion is different than his I always (that’s one of my worst qualities) tell him that, wanting to be right all the time. And he’s still tooking for opportunities to spend time with me, inviting me to go biking (his hobby is motorcycles) with him and so on, but as I see now I rarely accepted.
With some fear I understood today that when we talk, we rarely talk about him. When he gets from home I always ask “How your day was?” but feel I don’t want to hear anything but “fine”. I ask him about his fishing and motorcycles and work, but feel that the questions are somehow connected to me or I ask them without really caring. I understood only yesterday that my father became somewhat of a invisible role in our family to me – the one who needs to help everyone, but we judge him very fast if something goes wrong or once in a while He messes things up (drinking).
What happened last night? I came home and found him sitting in my room, next to computer. I started making my bed, went for a shower, brushed my teeth and went to bed with him still being there. He was playing some computer game. As soon as I got home I asked “How’s it going?” he told me “not too good” I asked why and he answered something about the game and I said “oh, all right then”. When I got to bed I asked him to turn off the computer in 20 minutes and started to watch how he was playing. We changed some random phrases and when 20 minutes were over I asked “please turn off”, he answered “just a couple more minutes” and then I said it in a kind of joking way “don’t you care for your daugher sleeping” and he answered “well, you don’t care for me either” I don’t remeber what I said but he added “that’s what I think”. (the conversation ended me “but you’re my dad…” and I said when he was leaving “it’s time I started” and he said “yes”)
And then it struck me. That’s true! I don’t care for my father! But how can it possibly be, he is a member of my immediate f